For a long while I wanted to get up early on a Saturday morning, drive upto the Golf Course road and take some photos of that beautiful stretch of road.But now I'm too late for that.Driving on that road will never be the same.
So I thought I shall post this one taken inside Cubbon Park, before someone decided to turn it into a concrete jungle.This photo was taken by my good friend Vishal Jogi, who won an award at the Bangalore Photography Exhibition for this photo.
He also gave me this pic of BRV on Cubbon Road. This place was used by the army to screen movies over the weekends right from the days of the British Raj. Who knows, in some days' time this beautiful building might give way to a state of the art Metro railway station for trains to the new International Airport.
Over the last 10 years Bangalore has grown at a rate faster than anybody could imagineAt a rate even it was not ready to cope up with.A lot of things have changed during this time, some for good, some for bad.And a lot many things have remained the same.
Previously Bangalore was known as the Garden City of India.But now it has become the Park City of India.Parks as in Bagmane tech Park, Manyata Tech Park, Embassy Tech Park and so on.Bangalore also had atleast a hundred fresh water lakes in the early 1900s.Some of these lakes were encroached to form areas like Koramangala.And some other lakes were filled with tonnes and tonnes of landfill to form large IT tech parks.So the next time it rains heavily and the place you live or work goes underwater, you probably know why.
Bangalore was also known as the pensioners' paradise. Evidence of that could be seen whenever you spotted a Premier Padmini being driven by a senior citizen in the exact centre of the road at a leisurely speed of 20 kmph. Today, this has been replaced by powerful bikes and sleek cars which have the highest acceleration after the signal goes red.Their shrill horns could even wake up the dead.They can also cut through lanes faster than I can cut an apple into two halves.
In those days when I was a kid, a Sunday would mean a family picnic to Cubbon Park or Lalbagh, where kids played at Bal Bhavan or go on a ride on Putani Express.Now times have changed.Come Sunday and you can see almost all of the public getting compulsively settled in one of the many crowded shopping malls.Probably that explains why one ends up paying fifty rupees for a popcorn at Forum mall. And you can also see everyone from papa, mama and the kids gleefully digging into burgers and pizzas.
Bangalore was known for its pleasant weather all round the year.Summers were mild, with a bit of rain every afternoon to cool things down.Most parts of the year we never needed a fan.Winters were pleasant, and the monsoon always extended from June to November. But now it can rain even in February.
Thanks to the phenomenon of global warming, and also due to rampant urbanisation,pollution and cutting down of trees, there are extremities in weather patterns.Every time it rains, I feel that the best mode of transport in the city is using boats. But I'm a lot relieved that this year its already started raining, and its still April. The only downside about these rains is that it makes commuting a miserable experience, unless one is going by a gondola.
There were two aspects about yesteryear Bangalore that need a mention here.Something that not many people talk about.One, is the defence and space research related setup. Bangalore has been a key centre for the army, airforce, HAL, DRDO,ISRO and so on.Other than their contribution towards India's defence needs, their other major contribution is that they have preserved most of the green cover inside the city. If not for them, probably a lot of defence land would be encroached by the powerful land mafia for commercial purposes.
The second reason is the educational institutions in Bangalore. Institutions like IISc, more popularly known at Tata Institute and National Law School are rated amongst the best in the world. And if that's not enough,there were a lot of top notch engineering and medical colleges setup in the the 60s, 70s through the 90s.Unfortunately, many politicians saw this as a business oppurtunity. As a result, one could see medical and engineering colleges mushrooming out from places like factory sheds.
Companies like Infosys, Wipro and others made it big and in the process helped in putting Bangalore on the IT map of the world. But the civic authorities were not alert to the situation, and never planned for the years to come. They were callous then, and they are the same even today.If that was not enough then gross political apathy and mismanagement has brought Bangalore to a state that it is in today. Thanks to the Son of the Soil, we are getting an International Airport in some months from now. Had it not been them we would have had one by 1998 itself.
Many of you might be relatively new to this city, and maybe from other states too. Many might have been living in Bangalore for 4-5 years now, and still not have found it necessary to learn Kannada, because most of the people here try to talk to you in the language you know.Be it English,Hindi, Tamil or Telugu.Well, I'm not a jingoist who'd insist that everyone who lives in Bangalore learns Kannada.But I would definetely admire a person who would want to learn the language of the land in which he is staying. The people are good, friendly, amicable but that won't be the same forever.
Had I been in a place like Chennai or Cochin, then I would be compelled to learn Tamil or Malayalam.Going by the current trends, the day isn't far when some Kannada activist group would enforce that everyone living in Bangalore should learn Kannada, and maybe blackout all other language channels in Bangalore.
Areas in old Bangalore like Basavanagudi, Malleshwaram still have that old world charm in them. You can still find a lot of elderly people sitting around in small eateries, sipping their favourite filter coffee. A lot of men and women walking around in beautiful parks like Lalbagh and Cubbon Park.
A lot of us including me who work in hi- fi offices would be happy to spend 5000 Rupees at a swanky restaurant on a meal for two. But it still can't match the joy and satisfaction of a Masala Dosa at CTR or Vidyarthi Bhavan.It still cannot match the taste of Halli Mane's akki rotti ,or the jolada rotti oota at Kamath Yatri Nivas. And all this for under three hundred rupees for a family of four, tax and tips included.
Everybody loves many things about Bangalore.And everybody cribs about the traffic here.Gone are those days when areas in and around Majestic were considered to be the traffic hotspots of the city. The traffic in the rest of the city has multiplied tenfold, while the traffic in Central Business District has multiplied only twofold. People suddenly seemed to have become more competitive. And they want to show off this competence on the roads too, by breaking signals, honking another vehicle into submission and racing on the opposite direction of a one way. While the policmen try to control their ever enlarging beer bellies, and satiate their greedy pockets.
Some things still remain the same.Even as kids, we were told to be careful of going out of home after 7 PM. Now the time limit has moved to 9 PM, especially if its for ladies.I wouldn't let any lady I know to travel by auto rickshaw after dark.Especially if she has to travel in and around the outer ring road, KR Puram, Marathhalli area. Some people might think I'm paranoid. Ask my sister, and she'll confirm that I am.
I wouldn't ever want to pick up a quarrel on the road with an autorickshaw driver or a cabbie.I once did and nearly got beaten to death. It was not so safe a city then, its not so safe a place even today.
In all this, I could see a sea of change in the people, our attitudes, our ways of life.
Money has been devalued like anything. For instance, a 50 rupee tip at a restaurant is more than the daily wage of many housmaids in Bangalore. Scruples seem to have no place anymore.I read someone having this sticker on the back of his bike, "Yes, its my dad's road!" But then I thought his dad bought the road and got the footpath for free, when I saw this fellow riding on the footpath to escape a traffic jam.
Sometimes I wonder, what's wrong with me? Why am I complaining?
No offence intended to anyone. But a lot of people in Bangalore, especially those working in IT, see this city as nothing more than a H1B/HSMP launchpad, from where they can go to the first world and never turn back to India.
I wonder, do such people really care a damn about Bangalore at all?
I don't expect the bureaucrats or the government to do anything about this. I feel the onus is on all of us, people who feel they are proud Bangaloreans, to change things. At this moment I'm clueless about how I can contribute in a big way to this. But atleast I've made a start by trying to be a responsible citizen to a great extent. Trying to respect the traffic laws even when there's no policeman around, paying my taxes on time, and of course, trying to pen my thoughts in this post.
